Enhancing Student Success Plan

Enhancing Student Success (ESS) is a four year, institution-wide plan seeking to enhance the undergraduate student experience. It comprises 2 separate projects – the First Year Experience (FYE) project, launched in September 2015 and a new project entitled Continuing Student Success which is looking at the on-programme experience of our levels 5 and 6 students.

The plan is designed to achieve the following objectives (approved by SEC in October 2016):

First Year Experience

Objective 2: Progression to level 5
To increase our rate of progression from Level 4 to Level 5 to 83%

Objective 3: Rate of return after a study break* for full-time first degree entrants
To increase the number of students that return to Northampton to 10% (sector mean)

Continuing Student Success

Objective 4: Student Completions
To increase our undergraduate student completion rates to 75% (performing above our HE competitor set). This is defined as students gaining the award that they were first registered on.

Objective 5: Undergraduate ‘Good Degrees’
To ensure that the percentage of undergraduate ‘good degrees’ lies within the range 62%-72% in line with HE and subject norms.

* All objectives are drawn from the University Operational Plan 2015-2020, apart from Objective 3, which is drawn from the HESA Performance Indicators Table T4a FT FD (all ages, 2014/15 entrants).

“This project is underpinned by the University’s principles for student success, which include an integrated and collaborative approach to supporting student success.”

* A study break is defined as a period of time away from studies for a maximum period of a year. A standard study break involves leaving at the end of one academic year, having a year away, and then returning at the beginning of the following academic year. It is also possible to have a mid-year study break, which would not impact on these measures.